Outdoor Activities ...
As we travel, we like to pursue some of our interests (such as astronomy and bird watching).
When in Elk Park, we use the following websites to find information relevant to Elk Park and the surrounding area.
- Weather ...
- Before heading outdoors, you should check the weather:
- The National Weather Service forecast for Elk Park
- Astronomy & Satellites ...
- Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
- To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above, we pass this GPS location for Elk Park:
- 36.158221, -81.980751
- Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
- The Heavens-Above Website, centered on Elk Park
- Bird Watching ...
- We enjoy finding new spots for bird watching and we use the eBird website for local sighting reports and to help identify hotspots.
- The eBird website is organized on a county-by-county basis. We have selected Avery County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
- eBird sighting report for Avery County
- Since Elk Park is near Carter County and also Johnson County, we have provided a link to their eBird sighting reports:
- eBird sighting report for Carter County
- eBird sighting report for Johnson County
- Waymarking ...
- Looking for somewhere out of the ordinary? Find a unique place and want to share it with others? Then it's time to visit Waymarking.com:
- Waymark.com
Communities Also Named Elk Park ...
We found four communities that share the name Elk Park.
There is one other community in North Carolina which is also named Elk Park.
Beyond North Carolina, we know of another three communities that are located throughout in the United States.
- Communities Located In North Carolina ...
- Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
- Colorado
- Montana
- Pennsylvania
Curious and Interesting Names Near Elk Park ...
As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.
- Battleground
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Battleground have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Battleground
- Battleground is located in Avery County
- Beech Bottom
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Beech Bottom have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beech Bottom
- Beech Bottom is located in Avery County
- Bitter End
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bitter End have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bitter End
- Bitter End is located in Carter County (TN)
- Carpenter Bottom
(5 miles [8 km] to the south)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Carpenter Bottom have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carpenter Bottom
- Carpenter Bottom is located in Avery County
- Chestnut Dale
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chestnut Dale
- Chestnut Dale is located in Avery County
- Cranberry
(Less than 2 miles to the southeast) - Cranberry Gap
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Cranberry Gap have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cranberry Gap
- Cranberry Gap is located in Avery County
- Dark Ridge ‑ Historic
(5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Dark Ridge have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dark Ridge
- Dark Ridge is located in Avery County
- Elk Valley
(3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Elk Valley have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elk Valley
- Elk Valley is located in Avery County
- Evergreen
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest) - Farmer Mill
(5 miles [8 km] to the north)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Farmer Mill have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Farmer Mill
- Farmer Mill is located in Carter County (TN)
- Flat Springs
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Flat Springs have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Flat Springs
- Flat Springs is located in Avery County
- Continue List (10 more) ...
- Frank
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the south) - Heaton
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast) - Heaton Creek
(5 miles [8 km] to the west)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Heaton Creek have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Heaton Creek
- Heaton Creek is located in Carter County (TN)
- Hughes
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the south) - Newland
(5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Newland have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Newland
- Newland is located in Avery County
- Population from the 2020 Census: 694 people
- Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Newland <4>
- Roaring Creek
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Roaring Creek have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Roaring Creek
- Roaring Creek is located in Avery County
- Shell Creek
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Shell Creek have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shell Creek
- Shell Creek is located in Carter County (TN)
- Estimated population in 2014: 21,037 people
- Sugar Hollow
(5 miles [8 km] to the west)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sugar Hollow have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sugar Hollow
- Sugar Hollow is located in Carter County (TN)
- Sugar Mountain
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sugar Mountain have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sugar Mountain
- Sugar Mountain is located in Avery County
- Population from the 2020 Census: 197 people
- Valley
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
- Frank
How Far From Elk Park to ...
We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers & Almanacs that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a town such as Elk Park to various places of note, such as the White House.
With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance beginning in Elk Park and extending to:
- Newland, which is the Seat of Avery County, lies just to the South Southeast.
- Raleigh, which is the State Capital of North Carolina, lies 188 miles [302.6 km]<2> to the east (E). If you could drive a straight line from Elk Park to Raleigh, with an average speed<5>of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, it would take a little over three hours to make the trip. A comfortable walk of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour would take 11 days. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take 8 days.
- The White House (Washington, DC) is 330 miles [531.1 km] to the northeast (NE). Driving would take five to six hours, a buggy would take 13 days and walking would take 19 days.
- The shortest distance<6> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 6,227 miles [10,021.4 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<7>
- The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 6,933 miles [11,157.6 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<8>
- The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 4,810 miles [7,740.9 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<9>
Off-the-Road Links ...
Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Elk Park. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.
The official website for Avery County: www.averyco.com/gov/
The official website for State of North Carolina: https://www.nc.gov/
Footnotes ...
| <1> | If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer. Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Mile's to see Pete ... Mile's is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name. Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time. Also keep in mind that Elk Park could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out. |
| <2> | Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Elk Park) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Elk Park. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 36.1582, Longitude: -81.9808 In this case, the coordinates for Elk Park have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). |
| <3> | The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required. |
| <4> | While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program. |
| <5> | While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day. |
| <6> | The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from Elk Park to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East. |
| <7> | The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 310.889 degrees. |
| <8> | The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 306.453 degrees. |
| <9> | The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 307.683 degrees. |